ETC Adopts Fixed Monetary Policy with 210M Supply Cap

On March 1, 2017, the Ethereum Classic community formally adopted ECIP-1017, establishing a fixed monetary policy with a hard supply cap — differentiating ETC from Ethereum's uncapped supply model.

## ECIP-1017: The Monetary Policy

The proposal, authored by Matthew Spoke, introduced a predictable emission schedule:

- **Era 1** (blocks 0–5,000,000): 5 ETC per block
- **Era 2** (blocks 5,000,001–10,000,000): 4 ETC per block (20% reduction)
- **Era 3** (blocks 10,000,001–15,000,000): 3.2 ETC per block
- **Each subsequent era**: 20% reduction from the previous era

This creates a geometric series that converges to a maximum supply of approximately **210,700,000 ETC**.

## Why It Matters

### Sound Money
A fixed, predictable supply schedule makes ETC a deflationary asset. Unlike fiat currencies or uncapped cryptocurrencies, no authority can increase ETC's supply beyond the protocol-defined limit.

### Predictability
Miners, investors, and users can calculate exactly how many ETC will exist at any future point. There are no surprises and no discretionary monetary decisions.

### Bitcoin Parallel
The 20% reduction per era is ETC's equivalent of Bitcoin's halving events, though with a gentler reduction curve. The community calls these reductions "fifthenings" (keeping four-fifths of the previous reward).

## Uncle/Nephew Rewards

ECIP-1017 also reduces uncle and nephew block rewards proportionally in each era, ensuring that all emission — including stale block rewards — follows the same schedule.

## Activation

The monetary policy was activated at block 5,000,000 (Era 2) via the Gotham hard fork on December 11, 2017.

[View the next block reward reduction →](/research/supply)